Tourists: Each land I see on TV
Shows vacationers, Japan to Germany.
Walking around Albania!
Of all the former tyrannies,
Isolated and enclosed,
Unallowed and unallowing place
That turned its face within;
Fortress just across from Greece,
Released at last –
And there they are: the tourists.
Tickets dear and far from home,
Here I sit,
Watching plucky program leader
Roam through history’s magnificence,
Significant; Three thousand years
Of wars and tears – and tourists
Curious about
The food, the folk, the houses, språk*
The world outside, the sea outwide…
I’m stupefied. And mystified.
Where do they find the energy! Curiosity?
And wherefrom comes the mania
To travel to Albania?
* Swedish for language. I used it because it was and appropriate rhyme,
Albanian Observation 1.15.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II;
Arlene Corwin
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